This is your brain. This is your brain on Patricia McKillip.

Once upon a time, at least a decade ago now, I had to stop working on a novel that I was writing because I'd just read Patricia McKillips Alphabet of Thorn, and it was trying to take over that part of my brain that dreams up plotlines. (The novel in question, incidentally, is still hanging out at around 12k in my story file, and some day I'll be struck with a good sense of the last main character I was about to introduce and pick it up again.)

A little over a month ago, I read The Bards of Bone Plain (slightly belated, as I didn't buy it immediately and then my mother offered me her copy for Christmas), and it got me un-stuck on a short story that I just finished. Most of my short stories seem to be very McKillipy; it's something about the dreamy fairytale voice as a wavelength on which my brain resonates well in short bursts. At any rate, The Bards of Bone Plain was conveniently partitioned by little bits of academic paper at the beginning of every other chapter, and those broke up the flow sufficiently that I didn't just plough through it in one sitting, and wrote bits and pieces of my own story in between.

( and then there's this workshop I've been contemplating... )

Also, I have another Patricia McKillip book to read; I just acquired a copy of In the Forests of Serre, which I hadn't read since it came out, and only really remembered as the book with that silly princess who keeps shooting arrows at things like the moon, which is not what it's really about at all. I had entirely forgotten the witch, but she is helping me with the re-thinking of some of Jennet's motivations, which I'd been having trouble with. (It being somewhat difficult to construct believable characters who've lived about 15 times as long as you have...)

la, la, la...

This is your brain. This is your brain on Patricia McKillip.

Once upon a time, at least a decade ago now, I had to stop working on a novel that I was writing because I'd just read Patricia McKillips Alphabet of Thorn, and it was trying to take over that part of my brain that dreams up plotlines. (The novel in question, incidentally, is still hanging out at around 12k in my story file, and some day I'll be struck with a good sense of the last main character I was about to introduce and pick it up again.)

A little over a month ago, I read The Bards of Bone Plain (slightly belated, as I didn't buy it immediately and then my mother offered me her copy for Christmas), and it got me un-stuck on a short story that I just finished. Most of my short stories seem to be very McKillipy; it's something about the dreamy fairytale voice as a wavelength on which my brain resonates well in short bursts. At any rate, The Bards of Bone Plain was conveniently partitioned by little bits of academic paper at the beginning of every other chapter, and those broke up the flow sufficiently that I didn't just plough through it in one sitting, and wrote bits and pieces of my own story in between.

( and then there's this workshop I've been contemplating... )

Also, I have another Patricia McKillip book to read; I just acquired a copy of In the Forests of Serre, which I hadn't read since it came out, and only really remembered as the book with that silly princess who keeps shooting arrows at things like the moon, which is not what it's really about at all. I had entirely forgotten the witch, but she is helping me with the re-thinking of some of Jennet's motivations, which I'd been having trouble with. (It being somewhat difficult to construct believable characters who've lived about 15 times as long as you have...)

la, la, la...

Experimentally cross-posty from dreamwidth. Comments encouraged in either location.